Karen Allen was a high schooler in the mid-1960s, not a college student, but she remembers the flavor of the times.

It was, she says, a transitional period, when short hair was still the norm for young men and '50s fashions had not quite given way to the bell bottoms and tie-dye of the hippie era.

Michael Weller's play "Moonchildren" is a snapshot of the era. Written in 1971, the script finds a group of eight college students trying to make a go of communal living in an off-campus attic in the mid-'60s.

Allen is directing the play for Berkshire Theatre Festival. It opens Saturday on the festival's Unicorn stage.

Allen is, of course, best known for her high profile role as Marion Ravenwood in the "Indiana Jones" film series (she starred in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"). She was also in "National Lampoon's Animal House" and "Scrooged," among other films.

Allen, an Illinois native, actually has a long history in the Berkshires, stretching back to a 1981 BTF revival of "Two For The Seesaw." In addition, she worked at Williamstown Theatre Festival for a number of seasons (including a stint in a celebration of Tennessee Williams, with the participation of the playwright) and she studied at Shakespeare & Company through an association with voice teacher Kristin Linklater.

In her initial time at BTF, she became friends with Berkshire County residents William Gibson (author of "Seesaw") and Arthur Penn (both now deceased). Eventually, she ended up on Broadway in Gibson's "The Monday After the Miracle," under the direction of Penn.

"It was a significant experience in my life, because I continued to be friends with them and worked with them again and again."

Allen has had a home in the Berkshires since the late 1980s, and early in this decade she became a business owner as well.

Allen has actually directed "Moonchildren" before, just around the corner from her store.

As an adjunct professor at Bard College at Simon's Rock, she developed a student production of the play that she found "very, very exhilarating."

Many of her actors in that staging were high school age as well, owing to the school's "early college" curriculum.

Allen, who is familiar with Weller's other work, had never seen a production of "Moonchildren" prior to her own.

"I literally fell head over heels in love with the play, so I brought it to the attention of the festival. We had such a strong response from the students and the teachers and the parents and the community that I thought this is something I would love to do again sometime in a larger venue, where we can have a chance to do more than four or five performances."

Allen has known Weller socially since the '80s, and she is in close contact with him while working on this production of "Moonchildren." Weller, in fact, attended the first rehearsal with the full cast.

"At the end of it he came over and said, 'Oh my god, this an extraordinary ensemble you've assembled.' "

Allen, as noted, was a high schooler during the time period of the play, but she does know what the communal life is like.

"I had some of those same experiences six or seven years later, after high school. I actually did live in an urban commune when I went to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. There were eight of us in the house and I often feel, when I'm working on the play, that my own experience is a nice foundation for remembering that kind of dynamic."